Read the Web
Research Project at Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Browse the Knowledge Base!

Can computers learn to read? We think so. "Read the Web" is a research project that attempts to create a computer system that learns over time to read the web. Since January 2010, our computer system called NELL (Never-Ending Language Learner) has been running continuously, attempting to perform two tasks each day:

• First, it attempts to "read," or extract facts from text found in hundreds of millions of web pages (e.g., playsInstrument(George_Harrison, guitar)).
• Second, it attempts to improve its reading competence, so that tomorrow it can extract more facts from the web, more accurately.

So far, NELL has accumulated over 50 million candidate beliefs by reading the web, and it is considering these at different levels of confidence. NELL has high confidence in 2,810,379 of these beliefs — these are displayed on this website. It is not perfect, but NELL is learning. You can track NELL's progress below or @cmunell on Twitter, browse and download its knowledge base, read more about our technical approach, or join the discussion group.

Recently-Learned Facts

instance	iteration	date learned	confidence
phone_text_messaging is an item found on a table	1111	06-jul-2018	99.7
adherent_platelets is a type of biological cell	1111	06-jul-2018	94.6
rosa_murillo is american	1111	06-jul-2018	91.5
hexyl_bromide is a chemical	1111	06-jul-2018	100.0
hotel_sachsenhof is a place to ski	1111	06-jul-2018	90.7
the home stadium of rich_hill is wrigley_field	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
law is an academic program at the university george_washington_university__s_elliott_school	1114	25-aug-2018	96.9
snails is a type of organisms	1113	15-aug-2018	99.6
receiver looks like display001	1111	06-jul-2018	93.8
lord_jesus is a person who died at the age of 16	1116	12-sep-2018	96.9